Town & Opportunity

Adam had been sleeping for a while already and at some point, he started shifting positions. He turned to the left, then to the right. He slept on his back, then on his stomach. His eyes seemed to move under his eyelids, and he had a frown on his face.

This went on for some time, and then he opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was the smiling face of the hunter he had killed last night, it was bleeding and was impossibly close to his own face!

This surprised and shocked him to no end. He jumped back in fright and hit the wall next to him with his back. The wall didn't stop him and he went through it as he started falling...engulfed by darkness as he went deeper and deeper. The fall seemed to be endless...

Adam couldn't see anything, and this lasted for a who knew how long... until he hit the ground, very hard!

"gaaaaaaaaaah!!", screamed Adam in horror as he opened his eyes. His clothes were drenched in sweat, his face pale and distorted by fear.

It was only a nightmare...

He looked around and he was still in the shed. He sat there for a moment and after calming down, he stood up and washed his face with some cold water. He took off his shirt and wiped his body dry with a piece of cloth that he found in the shed.

He wanted to breathe in some fresh air, so he went to the door to open it. He pulled the door back and as soon he did so, some sunlight came in and landed on his forearm and further in the shed. Pain!

It hurt so much! Adam screamed as he closed the door, and then looked at his arm. He was burned, and it looked very bad...

Adam quickly poured some water on his skin and it somewhat helped him. But the pain was still strong and he didn't know how to lessen it. He poured water on a piece of cloth and put the wet thing on his burn. He sat on the ground with a frown on his face.

He had forgotten...he couldn't go out in the sun anymore...

Adam went back to the bed and laid down again. He closed his eyes and started thinking about what had happened recently. It was then that he realized something...he had killed a man in cold blood and then went to sleep without a second thought...

He hadn't been like that before...why and how did he change this much?

The frown on his face faded as he realized something else...he actually felt like he didn't care about the change in his personality or about the man that he had killed...it felt wrong, but he somehow felt as if he had lost something.

However he thought about it, Adam felt like the man was no different from a deer or a chicken to him...He laid there and became lost in his thoughts.

Time flowed and after a couple of hours, Adam stood up. It should be time to go.

He carefully opened the door while hiding behind it, no light came in. He opened it and it was dark outside.

Adam bundled some animal hides and furs, grabbed a bag and took some jerky, a rope and an axe. He packed everything and left the shed. He would go to the town at the foot of the mountain and pretend to be a hunter coming back to sell his spoils.

Before he would go, however, he would go to the man's corpse and take his clothes. It wasn't necessary, but he would be more convincing that way.

As he reached the spot where he had left the body, Adam grew perplexed...the body wasn't there anymore!

He couldn't waste time, so he moved on and ran through the forest as fast as he could.

While running, he went past some hunter sheds but he didn't stop.

After a while, Adam could see the lights of torches in the distance. He had been running for a few hours and it made him feel refreshed. He loved this sensation of not getting tired. Never in his life had he been this physically strong, and he didn't dislike it at all.

He approached the town and as he got closer he saw a huge stone wall surrounding many tiled houses also made of stone. It was very dark, but he could see everything. There was a huge temple in the middle of the town and on the far side, he could see a huge manor that was surrounded by an inner wall.

Adam could see all of this because he was on a slope and had a good view of the whole town. While the town was further down at the foot of the mountain and built on flat land. There was farmland spreading far and wide around the town and there were many small houses built outside of the protection of the walls.

He had already been here once before. It had been when he was a kid and had come to the town with Archibald who had carried him most of the journey. He couldn't remember most of it anyway, and only had a vague memory.

After a few minutes, Adam had reached the skirts of the town and headed towards the entrance. As he went past the small houses outside the walls, he heard people quarreling and children crying. He could also feel the smell of blood coming from some of the houses.

While being surprised and impressed at his improved sense of smell, Adam reached the arched entrance to the town. The gates were open and four soldiers that were supposed to guard the entrance were sitting on chairs at one side. They wore leather and plate armors and held spears, swords and shields.

The place was well lit with fires and torches, so they could see him very well.

"Hey kid, cm'here", said one of the guards.

Adam looked at him for a second, then he approached them. Once he got close, the smell of alcohol filled his nose.

"What you doing out here in the middle of the night? Looking for trouble?", continued the guard with a grin on his face.

Noticing the smiles on the other guards' faces, Adam answered.

"Not looking for trouble sir. I'm just looking someplace to spend the night, and then sell animal hides and furs tomorrow morning."

The grin on the guard's face got even bigger then he looked at his friends and said.

"Well, well...entrance to the city is forbidden at night...but I'm sure we could make an exception for this young lad here, right?"

"Don't know 'bout that.", said one of the guards while pretending to be serious.

"yeah, rules are rules.", agreed another guard.

The last guard only nodded.

Adam looked at them and saw that they were having a hard time keeping a straight face. They looked as if they were about to start laughing. Then he looked at the guard that spoke first and saw that he had an apologetic expression on his face as he said.

"Well seems like we can't help it. These guys don't like breaking the rules like that...maybe a little something could convince them."

At that moment, Adam understood what he meant and didn't feel like attracting too much attention as he reached for a pouch inside his clothes and took a silver coin out and gave it to the guard.

"hmm...well I'd say that's enough to convince two of them. All four of us need to agree on this before you can go in.", said the guard as he pocketed the coin.

Pretending to be heartbroken, Adam forked another silver coin to the guard. He was then allowed entrance.

Adam dropped the act as he walked away. He didn't care much about the silver coins as he had gotten quite the amount of money from the village chief and the captain.

He looked around and then headed towards the less fancy part of the town which was located close to the outer wall.

Soon enough, and without much trouble Adam found an inn in a retired place of the town. He went inside and as if to confirm his suspicions, the place was quite dark and had some unfriendly faces getting drunk in the middle of the night.

While the walls were made of stones, everything else was made of wood. There were a few tables and chairs spread around the place and a bar counter. Everything here looked like they had seen much better days, people included.

He approached the bar counter and saw an old man sitting there.

"Do you have free rooms?", asked Adam.

"Only if you have the coins.", said the old man as he spat on the ground.

"How much for the night?"

"One silver a day, one meal included. Thirty coppers for the room without the meal."

Adam took three silver coins and put them on the counter.

"Here's for three days with meal."

The old man took the coins and stood up.

"Follow me", said he to Adam before going upstairs.

As they got up, they went past two rooms and when they reached the room at the end of the corridor, the old man took a key out of his pocket and opened the door. He then turned to Adam and gave him the key.

"Don't lose it or you pay extra. When do you want to get the meal?", asked the man.

Adam thought for a moment and then said.

"Just after sunset."

"Sure.", said the man as he left.

Adam got in the room and closed the door. He looked inside and saw an old bed made of wood, on which was straw that had been covered by a large sheet of old hemp cloth. Next to the bed was a wooden chair, and next to it were two wooden buckets. One had water and the other was empty.

The sight of those buckets perplexed Adam, he would usually do his biological needs in the forest and had a hard time imagining himself doing it in a bucket.

He sat on the bed and it wasn't that bad.

He had just started to think this wasn't so bad when he heard the sound of moaning and grunting coming from the room next to his...

He waited for a while and they wouldn't stop. He thought for a moment and left his room, then closed it as he had left the hides and furs inside. There was still some time before sunrise, so he went for a walk.

He wandered around and as he went inside an alley, he saw a man surrounded by four people holding knives and hatchets.

The man and Adam's eyes met for a second. Then Adam hid in the shadows and started observing them.

The man in the middle was in his thirties or so and had a head full of dark hair. The other four were mostly young men and an older man that seemed to be their leader. Their faces were covered with a piece of cloth.

"Are you sure about this?", said the cornered man.

"Cut the crap! Just give us the money and we'll let you go.", said one of the thugs while pointing his knife at the man.

"The lot of you are either idiots, or...imbeciles!", said the man as he dashed at the thug holding a knife mid-sentence.

Seeing him close in on him, the thug was surprised and tried to slash horizontally with his knife. But his wrist was grabbed by the man who then also grabbed the thug's elbow and made a spin while using the arm as lever to project the thug into the wall, head first.

The man then quickly grabbed the knife and looked up at the three thugs left. The three were stunned at what had taken place, it happened so fast! They looked at their friend on the ground and he seemed to be dead.

Anger was their first reaction as the three of them jumped at the man while swinging their weapons.

The man reacted fast and moving even faster ducked under a hatchet's swing and under a thug's arm and as he did so, he pushed him hard with his shoulder.

The thug was sent flying towards the other the other two attackers who had to grab him. They let go of him and saw him fall on the ground lifeless. They looked in surprise and saw a huge bleeding wound on his chest, where his heart is supposed to be.

The two were horrified! They had seen the shoulder push but hadn't noticed when he had stabbed him. As they looked up from their fallen ally, one of the two thugs' head jerked back and he fell on the ground.

The last thug looked down and he saw a knife stabbed into his friend's eye socket. He was dead!

"Tell whoever sent you that we're in the town to stay. They can either leave or die.", said the man while wiping his blood dripping hand with a piece of cloth he took from the first thug he had killed.

The young man didn't say anything as he turned around and ran away as fast as he could.

"You're quite good at hiding. Why don't you come out?", said the man as he turned and looked at a dark corner.

Hiding in that dark corner was Adam. He came out with a smile on his face.

"Nice fight."

"Nothing out of the ordinary.", said the man before adding. "If I hadn't seen you earlier, I might not have found where you were hiding. I like that."

Adam didn't answer, which made the man smile.

"Come to the Drunken Bird bar tomorrow at midnight. I'll just say that this is an opportunity that's hard to come by.", said he as he turned around and started walking away.

"Tell the barman that you're a bird of prey.", said the man as he disappeared behind a house.

Adam stood there for a moment and then decided to go back to the inn. He would think about it in his room.

He arrived quickly and went to his room. To his greatest shock and surprise, the people next door were still at it!

He closed the door and went to his bed. He started thinking about the offer that man had made. He would have to make a decision by tomorrow, but he still had time. A while later, the couple next door seemed to have had enough and the sound stopped.

He then heard movement and the sound of the door opening. He got up and rushed to the corridor to take a look and what he saw made him drop his jaw to the floor.

The two people coming out of that room were a very old man and woman!

Adam went back to his room.